Yeast-jar, or, what is better, two or three Mason’s
glass cans, kept for yeast.

This list does not include any crockery for setting
a servant’s table; that being governed by the
number kept, and other considerations. Such dishes
should be of heavier ware than your own, as they are
likely to receive rougher handling; but there should
be a full supply as one means of teaching neatness.

Wooden-ware is essential in the shape of a
nest of boxes for rice, tapioca, &c.; and wooden pails
for sugar, Graham-flour, &c.; while you will gradually
accumulate many conveniences in the way of jars, stone
pots for pickling, demijohns, &c., which give the
store-room, at last, the expression dear to all thrifty
housekeepers.

Scrubbing and water pails, scrubbing and blacking
brushes, soap-dishes, sand-box, knife-board, and necessities
in cleaning, must all find place, and, having found
it, keep it to the end; absolute order and system being
the first condition of comfortable housekeeping.

CHAPTER VI.

WASHING-DAY, AND CLEANING IN GENERAL.

Why Monday should be fixed upon as washing-day, is
often questioned; but, like many other apparently
arbitrary arrangements, its foundation is in common-sense.
Tuesday has its advantages also, soon to be mentioned;
but to any later period than Tuesday there are serious
objections. All clothing is naturally changed
on Sunday; and, if washed before dirt has had time
to harden in the fiber of the cloth, the operation
is much easier. The German custom, happily passing
away, of washing only annually or semi-annually, is
both disgusting, and destructive to health and clothes;
the air of whatever room such accumulations are stored
in being poisoned, while the clothes themselves are
rubbed to pieces in the endeavor to get out the long-seated
dirt.

A weekly wash being the necessity if perfect cleanliness
exists, the simplest and best method of thoroughly
accomplishing it comes up for question. While
few women are obliged to use their own hands in such
directions, plenty of needy and unskilled workwomen
who can earn a living in no other way being ready
to relieve us, it is yet quite as necessary to know
every detail, in order that the best work may be required,
and that where there is ignorance of methods in such
work they may be taught.

The advantages of washing on Tuesday are, that it
allows Monday for setting in order after the necessary
rest of Sunday, gives opportunity to collect and put
in soak all the soiled clothing, and so does away with
the objection felt by many good people to performing
this operation Sunday night.

To avoid such sin, bed-clothing is often changed on
Saturday; but it seems only part of the freshness
and sweetness which ought always to make Sunday the
white-day of the week, that such change should be made
on that morning, while the few minutes required for
sorting the clothes, and putting them in water, are
quite as legitimate as any needed operation.